CRES spending, allowances questioned
1/07/2010

The actual budget for the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), initially put in the region of a billion baht, has been questioned by the House committee on military affairs.

The committee, chaired by Pol Lt-Col Somchai Phedprasert of the opposition Puea Thai Party, wants to know how much money had been spent from the central fund of the 2010 budget for the operation of the CRES, which was set up to oversee the protests of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

Representatives of the Budget Bureau were invited to testify to the committee on Thursday. They included Thammasak Samphansantikul, director of the General Administration Budget Preparation Office, Duangta Tancho, director of the Budget Policy and Planning Office, Kalaya Fongsamut, director of the National Security Budget Preparation Office, and Sarasin Sirisathaporn, director of the Defence Budget Preparation Office.

All of them testified similarly, that it had not yet been concluded how much had been spent on the CRES, as it is still in operation. They believed it could be more than one billion baht.

Pol Lt-Col Somchai also asked them why soldiers and police working for the CRES receive a special allowance of 400 baht per day, while those operating in the three southern border provinces get only 210 baht per day.

The representatives of the Budget Bureau said the size of the allowance had been fixed under agreements made between the army and security agencies and the Finance Ministry. The Budget Bureau was responsible only for allocating the money.

Pol Lt-Com Somchai said the committee would on July 8 invite high-level executives of the Finance Ministry to explain whether it was still necessary for the CRES to get such an allocation.

The committee chairman said he was of the opinion that it was a waste of tax payers' money to continue paying the allowance to more than 60,000 personnel of the CRES when the situation had been, to an extent, resolved.

"More importantly, the Finance Ministry and the government should not allow the allowances for security personnel to be so different. Soldiers and police in the southern border provinces are operating in a riskier situation," he said.

On Wednesday, Surapong Towichakchaikul, a Puea Thai MP for Chiang Mai, also demanded the Anti-Money Laundering Office examine the assets of members of the CRES and Department of Special Investigation.

Mr Surapong made the demand in his capacity as chairman of the subcommitee on microeconomics of the House committee on monetary, fiscal and financial institutions.

He accused some CRES officers of extoring money from the 83 individuals and companies who have had their financial transactions frozen for allegedly funding the red-shirt protests.

bangkokpost.com